Publishing Experience:THE PURPLE CLOUD PROJECT set to come out MARCH 2017

Posted 31 August 2015 - 08:21 PM

Like most of you, I finished my first MS and didn’t know how to begin writing my Query. Thanks to the all mighty Google I stumbled upon this site. My first stop was to obviously check the successful queries. After reading a great deal of them, I felt confident enough to write my own. After all, it looked simple enough.

In my first draft, I made the mistake of trying to include too much. After a great amount of what I felt was constructive criticism, I came to realize that writing Queries was a completely different and new art form I had to try and master.

By my 3rd draft, I was getting better responses. Someone even made the comment that they felt it was spot on. Then a wave of more critiques came in right after the other, suggesting more changes and tweaks. I’ll admit, by this time I was getting frustrated and even began doubting myself.

By my 5th draft, my query seemed like it was written by someone else. I wasn’t happy with the direction it was heading and decided to take a break from it all.

During this break, I made the decision to trust my gut, and went back to one of my earlier drafts. I made some changes that I felt it needed, which included adding things that some suggested I remove. In the end it was my voice and my choice to say what I wanted how I wanted. I never posted it on this site, just said screw it, and sent them out. It took a long time, patience, and rejections, but I finally got the answer us writers are waiting to hear...

YES!

If it weren’t for this site I wouldn’t know where to start. The reason why I wanted to share this with you is because yes you are going to get a lot of great tips and feedback, and yes you’re not going to satisfy everyone. You might even get chewed up a bit. But when the smoke clears YOU are the one that’s going to have to believe in yourself and decide when YOU feel your query is ready.

I haven’t been active on this site for a really long time, but I do hope this helps some of you. And I sincerely want to wish you guys luck, because we writers really need to stick together.

QUERY:

Dear Agent,

Ask anyone still alive and they’ll tell you exactly where they were the day the sky turned purple and the world was lost.

The Zero Army began their global assault on May 1st and knew exactly how to strike to leave the planet crippled. The day went from bright and sunny to dark and bloody. Everything lost power, planes fell from the sky, people panicked, and cities went up in flames.

Christopher Denmark still has nightmares about that day. Out of the fifty-thousand men sent to battle this mysterious army he’s the only one who managed to make it back alive; barely breathing and comatose. The men from his platoon call him Rabbit, short for Rabbit’s foot. They say he's lucky and the young Marine is starting to believe them.

After waking up from a three month coma, Christopher learns that the sky has not returned to normal and now a massive, threatening purple cloud has appeared. Hovering like a freakish dust-storm and dividing the country, the people fear it and naturally stay away. Its menacing presence leads survivors to assume anyone stuck on the other side is dead.

However, a distress call comes from beyond the wall, sparking hope. Christopher is immediately assigned to the elite team: The Brass Knuckle Bullies, merely as a good luck charm. The team is reluctant to accept the newcomer and wants nothing to do with him. But together they travel into enemy territory as humanities last hope, and discover the Zero Army’s true intentions. They quickly learn that the sky turning purple was only the beginning of a much greater plan, and mankind is merely an obstacle in their way.

THE PURPLE CLOUD PROJECT is an adult sci-fi novel complete at 140,000 words

Publishing Experience:Author of a five book cozy mystery series -- the Blue Ridge Library Mystery series -- with Crooked Lane Books. Books one, two, and three out now, book four out Jan. 2020. New mystery series -- the Booklovers B&B series -- contracted with Crooked Lane for future publication.

If it weren’t for this site I wouldn’t know where to start. The reason why I wanted to share this with you is because yes you are going to get a lot of great tips and feedback, and yes you’re not going to satisfy everyone. You might even get chewed up a bit. But when the smoke clears YOU are the one that’s going to have to believe in yourself and decide when YOU feel your query is ready.

I haven’t been active on this site for a really long time, but I do hope this helps some of you. And I sincerely want to wish you guys luck, because we writers really need to stick together.

Well done. Thanks for circling back and remembering all us little guys still swimming in the pond.

Paying it forward, paying it backwards, and paying it sideways -- this community is all about helping writers find their path and you can't always do that without help from each other.

Publishing Experience:My debut novel, "The Sister Queens," (March 2012/NAL), was set in 13th century France and England and wove the captivating story of sisters, Marguerite and Eleanor of Provence, who both became queens. My next solo novel, "Medicis Daughter," (Dec 1 2015/Thomas Dunne) traveled forward three-hundred years to the intrigue-riven French Valois court, spinning the tale of beautiful princess Marguerite who walks the knife edge between the demands of her serpentine mother, Catherine de Medicis, and those of her own conscience.

In between I became a "hybrid" as part of a group of six authors involved in a high concept novel-in-six-parts called "A Day of Fire" which released in November of 2014. The book, "A Day of Fire," tells the story of the final days of the doomed city of Pompeii in a way you've never read it before.

In October 2019 my next novel--another group project co-written with 5 other amazing, multi-published historical novelists--"Ribbons of Scarlet" will be released by William Morrow. A novel of the French Revolution's Women, Ribbons of Scarlet is a timely story of the power of women to start a revolution—and change the world.

I think you make an excellent point by trusting yourself in the end. It's great to hear all forms of feedback on the site, but if everyone adapted to the same form of criticism, everything would sound the same.

Publishing Experience:This is my first memoir! Unagented, unpublished. Just finishing the memoir now.

Posted 02 September 2015 - 11:51 AM

Congratulations and thank you for sharing your journey!! I needed to read that right now as I am at the beginning stages of query writing and feeling very frustrated!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Congrats, and I agree 100%! I've been thinking about this a while myself. You really do have to take critiques with a grain of salt and that's not always easy to do. You need to realize that most of the people trying to help you (with honest intentions in their heart) aren't agents and they aren't published authors. If they knew exactly what a query needed to catch agents then they probably wouldn't be here either! More importantly, and this is the big issue, agents are people. What that means is that they have this awesome thing called taste. For us writers landing an agent is the same as earning the key to opening your career door, so of course our query has to be absolutely perfect.

But I think most agents don't expect perfection, they expect professionalism, they expect curtesy, and they expect you to at least give them a glance at your book. Yes, a strong, powerful query will probably outshine others, just like a resume, but those aren't the only people who get hired and I like to believe those aren't the only queries that get chosen. I've seen a lot of "success queries" where I'm like "That landed an agent? Really?" and I guess it really does come down to the agent. After all, you really just need to entice them enough to read your partial or full, and after that it's the core of your actual product that will break or make you, just as it should be!

Anyway, basically what I'm saying is never forget to take critiques with a grain of salt, but don't just ignore it all either! Some people point out obvious things you may have missed or shadow doubts you've had yourself, so it's always a good experience to at least take a peek. Best of luck publishing your novel my friend!

Publishing Experience:I write fantasy, urban fantasy, young adult, steampunk and romance fiction. I also write short fiction in a variety of genres. I have published short fiction. My first pro fiction sale was THE TALE OF NAMELESS CHAMELEON (recommended reading by Tangent Online) to the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Most recent publications: EMBRACE OF THE PLANETS Sept-October 2014 Magazine of F&Sf. SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY November 2014 FICTION RIVER PAST CRIME ANTHOLOGY, GOOLIE UNRULY, Feb 2015 SKYWARRIOR BOOKS FIRST CONTACT CAFE ANTHOLOGY, GRET, BLACKGUARDS/BLACKLIST ANTHOLOGY from Ragnarok Publications, ST JEAN AND THE DRAGON May 2015 FICTION RIVER ALCHEMY AND STEAM ANTHOLOGY. I am currently at work on a Mythic Epic Fantasy series set in a Parallel Universe.

Posted 09 October 2015 - 12:48 AM

Well done and congratulations! I look forward to seeing your book in print. Thanks for sharing your great query with us and your musings related to it. There is nothing in this world like the positive support of writers to other writers. Like you, I doubt I would have been able to continue without others of like mind to keep me positive in this very difficult business of building passionate stories.

Excellent!!!! Yeah this site is a fantastic resource, thank god for it! But it's easy to get caught up second-guessing yourself based on individual feedback. At some point you have to remember no single query is going to appeal to every agent. Some agents want lots of detail, others want concise queries with just the basics. Bravo to you for taking the feedback and yet staying true to your gut!!

Publishing Experience:Worked with several film/video game websites as a critic.

Posted 24 March 2018 - 02:13 PM

Responding to an old query thread but thanks so much for posting this. Reading this was inspiring and helpful. The query letter is a hard sell, especially when so many rely on it having to be absolutely PERFECT.

Thanks for sharing this and hope you found more success along the way.